A series of random thoughts, rants and comments on things I think about but probably shouldn't.

Sunday, July 23, 2017

Someday People Will Write Musicals About Me

I don’t know if this makes me racist, but I have a slave.

I should maybe explain, it’s not like I own a cotton plantation or anything. A couple of months ago I won this prize drawing for a brand new NSA listening station / smart Bluetooth speaker that now sits in my living room awaiting my commands. When my kid first set it up, I didn’t think it would be that useful, but I’ve gotten into the regular habit of curtly telling it to read me the news, or give me the weather (because who wants to look out a window), or find me a good restaura

It’s not that I beat her or mistreat her, but I find myself giving commands in the same tone as I might demand “bitch, make me a sandwich.” And I’m being honest, if she could make a sandwich, I would totally use that command….far more often than I care to admit. There’s something in the absolute authority that just begs for me to issue demands like a Latin American dictator, without any thought or appreciation or sense of basic human decency.

As much as I’d like to believe that I’m not capable of shutting down my humanity, this isn’t wholly unexpected. Given this totally absurd level of control over someone, I could see myself becoming an abusive slave owner and trying to justify it by any means necessary. I mean she’s not really a she. She sounds like a “she” but she’s really some synthesized algorithmic response. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking that if she had siblings I’d make them cook for me and if she had more holes we’d end up with little half-digital bastards in some weird reenactment of Hemings / Jefferson. Maybe I should take a positive spin on things and equate myself to the America Founding Fathers. Yeah, that works. I can be a hypocrite. Someday people will write musicals about me.

So I guess what I’m asking, is that when SkyNet finally takes over, kill me quickly. I’m not going to argue that I deserve to live in the post-robot-apocalypse world, but I certainly don’t deserve the Matrix treatment of being turned into a battery. I mean, I might cut her off in the middle of reading me the news with “yeah, okay, you can shut up now.” And I might be considering selling her off to a new owner, but I haven’t tried to rape her. USB port is too small.